The Melancholy of Mikuru Asahina, Conclusion
by Martin III
Summary: Kyon comes up with a story to explain why he and Mikuru were alone together. Sort of. But Haruhi's reaction isn't what he expected.


Author's notes: As suggested by the title, this is a direct continuation of the short story "The Melancholy of Mikuru Asahina". I've always been frustrated at how that story leaves the two most important aspects of Haruhi's discovery of Kyon and Mikuru's adventure completely unaddressed. I wrote this story to fill those gaping holes.

However, this also acts as a follow-up to character threads in my preceding stories "Moonlighting with the SOS Brigade" and "Throw a Bean Back in Time". It's funny how so often things come together with very little effort from the writer. Those who have read those stories will perhaps have a better appreciation of the characters' journey, but those who haven't should have no trouble understanding what's going on.

And yes, I named the boy with spectacles. All respect to Mr. Tanigawa, but I have no idea what possessed him to think that telling the reader that Kyon recognizes the boy's name is more effective than readers being able to recognize his name themselves.

The characters and milieu of this fan fiction work are property of Nagaru Tanigawa.

* * *

**The Melancholy of Mikuru Asahina, Conclusion**

I had nothing.

There are probably infinite possible things a high school boy and a high school girl might be doing together, but I'll bet nearly all of them are romantic in nature. Of course, from experience I knew that at least two of them are completely platonic activities involving the saving of Earth's timestream, but Haruhi would never believe that. And in this case at least, the consequences would be catastrophic if she _did_ believe.

Yes, even more catastrophic than they would be if she didn't.

The thing was, even just standing there under Haruhi's scrutiny felt catastrophic. It would have been no big deal if I were just trying to conceal Miss Asahina's time traveling adventures. I'd have grabbed some simple explanation and delivered it without breaking a sweat, and Haruhi would have bought it. I'd done the same thing plenty of times to cover up the paranormal goings-on that seemed to swarm over Haruhi and her friends like flies over fruit.

But I wasn't just trying to conceal the paranormal this time. I was standing there, trying to come up with a lie that would hide the fact that I had taken Miss Asahina out on what I thought was a date. And that made me feel lower than a worm.

"Well?" Haruhi prodded again. "Are you going to just stand there until the sun goes down?"

I had nothing, and just trying to find something made me feel more and more pathetic. It was reaching the point where I had to say something, anything, just to end the nightmarish standoff. Even telling the truth couldn't be as painful as this.

Then, with my imagination failing me, I realized I had one alternative to the truth: The same lie Miss Asahina had told me. "...I was helping Miss Asahina buy tea leaves."

"Tea leaves?" Haruhi sounded disappointed.

"Yes, tea leaves. They're what you use to make tea." My confidence was returning as I went on. "You can taste for yourself that the tea we're drinking today is a kind that wasn't here last week." Not that the girl who downed her tea in two gulps could possibly have anything that resembled discerning taste. Or that I could remember the actual name of the tea we'd bought.

"That's it? You just bought some tea leaves?" Her disappointment was increasingly scathing, like she was angry at me for not coming up with a better story.

"Well, and... we sat down to have tea and snacks in the store's café."

"And?"

And? _And?_ What did that mean? Did she know more about our outing than she was letting on?

The creepy smile had reasserted itself on her face, seemingly answering that question in the affirmative. Miss Asahina and I were doomed.

"Well, after that..." I answered. "We... went for a walk." It was like all I could do was keep telling the truth. I felt helpless, like I had no control over my own mouth. "We were on our walk when we ran into your little neighbor."

"I see. And what you do after you left him?"

Miss Asahina was frantically shaking her head at me, but it was too late. I'd already said the worst of it, and besides, I just couldn't stop talking. "After that, we went to the park and, um, sat down on a bench. And we just talked for a while. Then we both went home."

Haruhi nodded. "That," she said, her smile becoming more sinister than ever, "...sounds like a date."

I couldn't speak.

"Well?"

_Well what? I've confessed. Can't you just kill me now and get it over with?_

"Well, was it a date?"

An easy enough question. Unfortunately, I had no reason to think Haruhi would believe the answer. I swallowed, and said, "No."

"You're _sure?_"

"Yes. It wasn't a date." _Miss Asahina was quite clear about that, I'm afraid._ I had to bite my lip to stop myself from saying that part aloud. It was like Haruhi was one of those snakes that hypnotizes its pray, except that instead of just making me freeze in place so she could swallow me whole, she was making me give full answers to everything she asked.

"Huh." The grin had faded from Haruhi's face, mercifully. She was now looking as though she'd just finished reading an utterly thrilling novel with an anticlimactic and confusing ending. It lasted just a moment, though, before she shrugged and held up her cup. "Well, okay then. Mikuru! More tea."

_What... the..._

Miss Asahina looked as surprised as me. "Huh? Oh, uh, right away, Miss Suzumiya."

She got the teapot, but her hands were still trembling. No matter how she tried, she just couldn't hold it steady.

I came to her aid. "Here, let me take that."

I was hoping to receive one of her heart-melting smiles of gratitude as I carefully took the teapot from her shaking hands, but she looked anxious and... a little hurt? "It wasn't a date, huh..." she murmured.

_Well, it wasn't, was it?_ But I knew what she meant. We'd gone on an outing, just the two of us, and exchanged some meaningful feelings. You would expect me to tell people that was a date, whether or not it actually was.

I would have explained to her that I'd only said that to keep us from getting in trouble, but the supreme despot of the literary clubroom was still in earshot. I brought her the requested tea and poured it into her cup.

"Hmm." I half-expected some chastisement for performing the service she'd ordered from Miss Asahina, but instead she just squinted at me thoughtfully and said, "You know, Kyon, you'd make a pretty good butler. Maybe I should get you a suit..."

_Don't I do enough goose-stepping for you as it is?_ "Enough. I know even you aren't absent-minded enough to have forgotten about my punishment, so stop playing games and get it over with."

"Huh? The punishment was for if you didn't tell me the truth."

"How do you know I told you the truth?"

Most foolhardy question ever asked? Quite possibly. Miss Asahina flinched, and started making little whimpers, but of course it was too late to take back the words already sprung from my idiot mouth.

"Because you never lie to me," Haruhi said, as if this were plain and obvious. "And if you did, believe me, I'd know."

_Oh, if only you knew. I've lied so often to conceal the paranormal situations that you create, you'd think I was a superhero with a secret identity._

_ ...Wait a second. That's different, isn't it? Haruhi knows about all that __paranormal __stuff, at some level. If she didn't, she wouldn't have been able to recruit exactly one alien, one time traveler, and one esper to the SOS Brigade. Plus, I did tell her the truth about that at one point, that time when I managed to get to the meeting first. She refused to believe me. So maybe she's not counting all that when she says I don't lie to her, because she subconsciously knows that I've told her as much of the truth as she'll allow me to where aliens, espers, and time travelers are concerned?_

_ My head hurts._

"Well?" She took a gulp of tea, and let out a loud ah. "Is that all?"

It defied all reason. I'd just spelled out for Haruhi that Miss Asahina and I had been on a romantic outing together, and she was sitting there gulping tea with no emotion apart from a hint of amusement.

It pissed me off. "No, that is _not_ all! What's your real business with that boy?"

"You mean Shiro? Did you not listen to a word I just said? I help him study sometimes."

"You _help him study?_" I found myself leaning over her, glowering my fury down upon her infuriatingly aloof self. "You, the girl who never does anything for anybody but herself?!"

"Is that what you think about me?"

There was an uncomfortable silence, broken only by a faint clink as Haruhi set her teacup down. _Oh boy. Maybe I should have have bit my tongue before I said that._

Then she leapt to her feet, a huge grin cracking across her face, and jabbed her index finger at a spot right between my eyes. "Ha!"

_"Ha"?_

"I told you, didn't I, that you don't know as much about me as you think you do? You didn't believe me, did you?"

Frankly, no, I didn't. And frankly, being wrong about this was giving me an apprehensive feeling right in the pit of my stomach. "So you're telling me that you help Shiro out of the goodness of your heart?"

"Anh, ah, ah!" She still had her index finger between my eyes, and now she gave my nose a sharp flick with her middle finger. "Remember my rules! You either trade for my info with yours, or figure it out on your own."

This was insane. Haruhi, being charitable? That made about as much sense as Stalin being merciful.

But she wasn't lying when she said she helped him study – she was genuinely surprised at my reaction. Which meant, she had to be getting something out of it. Were Shiro's parents paying her? Did she think he was secretly an alien, esper, or time traveler? Was she having him spy on me and Miss Asahina, and that sketch was just a way of covering up the fact that he already knew who we were? Were Haruhi's parents making her help him for some reason?

_Damn it. I haven't even met Haruhi's parents._

Haruhi's grin only seemed to grow brighter as she witnessed my confusion.

"You know what?" I scowled, pushing her damn index finger out of my face. "I _am_ going to figure it out on my own. Whatever game you're playing, I'm going to bring it to light. You can count on that."

"Yes, Kyon!" She punched me in the arm. It hurt. "That's the spirit! You really get it!" Not the reaction I was hoping for. "Keep this up, and you won't have to worry about being kicked out of the SOS Brigade anymore. There may even be a promotion in your future."

I didn't know what to think of this. It was like I could barely even recognize Haruhi. I mean, the similarity was enough to dismiss possibilities like clones and doppelgangers, even with that being the weird world I'd been living in since the day I met Haruhi, but she definitely wasn't the same girl she was on that day.

"Whew, now I'm getting all these great ideas for Brigade activities!" Haruhi finished her tea and shouldered her bag. "I'd better get home and write them down."

"The computer has word processing software, you know," I pointed out.

"You don't write ideas down on a computer screen. That's what notebooks are for." But she was still smiling at me as if I were a puppy who had just performed his first trick. She waved as she opened the door. "See you tomorrow, everyone!"

And then she was gone, humming a merry tune as she went.

God, she annoyed me.

* * *

Haruhi could barely feel her feet touching the ground. She stretched out her arms, almost believing that if she just flapped them, she could fly. Her mind drifted into the clouds, while her body was lightly kissed by the cold winter air, crisp and full of life. She felt as though the universe was bowing to her, waiting to receive her command.

It was finally happening: The exciting things she had hoped for for so many years. A boy, a boy she knew, had been in mortal danger, and Kyon had valiantly thrown himself into harm's way to save him.

She knew, now, that she had made the right choice.

There were times, she admitted, where she'd had her doubts. Like those first few weeks after forming the SOS Brigade, where nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Or when he'd balked at her proposal to strike back at the bullies who had shaved Yuki's head. At times like those, it was hard to see how Kyon could possibly be a hero.

But now she knew for certain that her instincts had been correct. She was on the right course, and had the right underling by her side.

Then there had been the icing on the cake, icing which had looked like sour cream at first glance. Mikuru had been with Kyon when he made the rescue. It really irked her when her brigade members got together and had adventures without her. Mainly, though, she was curious. She wouldn't have thought either of them would have the nerve to arrange an unapproved brigade mission, and what were they doing that they couldn't just ask her permission? It was the most intriguing mystery she'd encountered in almost a week.

Kyon's reaction to her inquiry was totally unforeseen. She had anticipated that he and Mikuru would be a little embarrassed, but beyond that, probably just Kyon's usual snark. Instead, he'd acted like he expected to be tried and given the death penalty, like he had no right to spend time with another girl. And that...

Well, that felt great. She'd had this feeling once before, just last month, when she saw the look on his face after she read the love note he'd written for that boy to Yuki. She'd had to struggle to keep from breaking down laughing at the way he squirmed at her feigned wrath. Teasing Kyon was always so much fun. Of course, the delight she'd felt on that day had soured shortly afterward when he showed more interest in hugging Mikuru than her. She realized then that he hadn't panicked at her discovery of the note because he was afraid of what she would think, but because he was afraid of what Mikuru would think. That hurt. Worse, it made her feel like a fool.

"But this is different," she said aloud. This time, the girl he'd been caught with was Mikuru herself, so it couldn't have been her he was concerned about.

One little outing, not even a real date, and he'd acted like her finding out about it was a fate worse than death. Clearly, his feelings for her had changed. Her relationship with Kyon wasn't where she wanted it to be yet – in fact, she still wasn't even sure where that was – but at least she had him hooked.

More importantly, he had proven himself to be what she'd always known he was. She'd had to fight the urge to leap on him and hug him when he walked into the classroom that morning. But as painful as it was to hold her emotion in, she couldn't let him know that she knew about his daring rescue. If he knew, he would expect her to give him more respect, maybe even special treatment. And she couldn't pamper anyone, especially not Kyon. The way he always grumbled over his good deeds, never expecting any recompense for them, was one of the things she liked most about him. He did the right thing because he couldn't see any other option, and she didn't want that to change.

"Hi, Miss Suzumiya!"

It was Shiro, waving to her from his window. She waved back before heading up the front steps.

It was funny, but she'd been thinking of Kyon the first time she agreed to help Shiro study. It had just occurred to her that it was the sort of thing he'd say she should do. She wasn't doing it for Kyon's sake, though; it had never even occurred to her that she might mention it to him at some point. In fact, it felt like helping Shiro was the sort of thing she'd always liked doing. She'd just forgotten. For a while, she'd been so focused on finding a way to be someone extraordinary, she'd forgotten her own identity. Now that she was remembering who she really was, she was starting to realize that she'd never been all that dull and ordinary to begin with. Kyon had helped her see that.

She found her way to Shiro's room, and he met her with a smile. "Have you come to help me with physics again?"

"Sure, I can do that. But first..." She reached into her bag, took out the little audio recorder she'd purchased the afternoon before, and pressed record. "...tell me one more time about how that boy saved your life..."

END


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